The Book Club
by Malvolia
Summary: All stories have a context as well as a subtext. Ben and Juliet's is no different. A fic about the most important book club meetings in Ben and Juliet's story.
1. Of Mice and Men

**September 7, 2001**

"Hello, Juliet. So glad you could make it. I think you've met everyone already?"

Juliet looked around the room. Familiar faces looked back at her, some curious, some distrusting, a few welcoming. She was too embarrassed to admit she knew only a few names. The first round of introductions hadn't really taken—she had been a bit too overwhelmed with her surroundings and the details of her new job.

"Yes," she said.

His mouth quirked in a secretive smile, as if he knew she were lying.

"Good," he said. He passed her a tray of oatmeal cookies and picked up a book from the arm of the couch.

She took a cookie and passed the tray to the blond woman on her left.

"Thanks," said the blond woman. Colleen, was it? "I need comfort food after this book."

"Steinbeck always depresses me, too," said Ethan, one of the few whose names Juliet was confident about.

"But he writes so well," said another woman. "It's so fluent…just really easy to read."

"I feel the same way, Bea," said Ethan. "But I don't have to like him to be fascinated by him."

Ben glanced over at Juliet, and she realized she had been watching him for some time. She shook her head and turned back to the rest of the group.

"Speaking of people you like and don't like," said Bea, "what did you think of George?"

"I liked him," said the blond woman. "Not as much as I liked Lennie, but I liked him."

"You have to like Lennie," said Ethan. "Even with the things he does. He doesn't mean to hurt anything, he just doesn't know what he's doing. And I like George because he does his best to look out for both of them—he just can't keep an eye on Lennie every second."

"I feel like there's something he could have done better," Juliet volunteered. All eyes were on her, and she could feel her face flushing with nervousness, but she was determined to be a part of things here in this place. "Lennie _does _hurt things. He _does_ hurt people. And sometimes George is there for him, but sometimes he doesn't seem to notice clear warning signs. Shouldn't they both have moved on as soon as they realized Curley's wife was trouble?"

"It wasn't so easy to leave," said Bea, at the same time the blond woman said, "Yeah, she sure was a tramp, wasn't she?"

The discussion broke off in two different directions, with half the group discussing the economic situation during the Great Depression and half discussing Curley and his wife. While trying to follow both threads, Juliet felt someone's eyes on her and looked up.

"Is it so easy to serve as somebody's conscience?" Ben asked quietly. "To look out for him all the time?"

"Not exactly," she said. "But I guess I want to believe it's possible."

"An admirable sentiment," he said.

"Or a hopeless one."

"There's always hope," he said, and grinned slightly. "Even in Steinbeck."

"Those poor rabbits!" someone exclaimed, and the branches of discussion flowed into each other again.

They talked about the book for the next half hour, and then Bea said, "Who chose this book, anyway?"

"Ben, isn't this your pick?" asked a man Juliet didn't know.

Ben nodded. "It's my favorite book."

"But you haven't said anything all meeting," the blond woman said. "Why do you like it so much?"

"'Books ain't no good,'" said Ben, his voice changing subtly as he began the quotation. "'A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.'"

Everyone sat in silence, waiting for him to continue.

"Lots of reasons," he said simply.

"You've always liked rabbits, haven't you Ben?" laughed the blonde.

The discussion ended, and everyone turned to chatting over the rest of the coffee in their mugs. The blond woman, whose name turned out to be Colleen after all, asked Juliet what sort of books she liked to read.

"All kinds," said Juliet. "I really like Stephen King."

"Don't let Ben hear you say that," said Colleen. "He's a classics guy all the way."

"_Carrie_ is a classic," protested Juliet, half-jokingly. She caught Ben's eye across the room. The wry smile he gave her before turning back to his conversation with Ethan told her there wasn't much in this place Ben didn't hear sooner or later.

Colleen laughed. "Trust me," she said. "We won't be reading any Stephen King as long as Ben's in this book club. Sorry."

"That's okay," said Juliet. "To be honest, I don't have a lot of experience with the classics. It will be nice to read some of those for a change."

"Yeah," said Colleen, with an unreadable glance towards Ben. "For a change."

Juliet nodded her goodbyes and made her way to the door. Ben met her there and held it for her as she walked out. She shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight and turned back into the shade of the porch.

"Thanks for inviting me," she said.

"You're welcome," he said. "I'm glad you came."

Halfway down the path to her bungalow, she stopped and looked up at the mountains. The sun was warm against her skin, and the breeze brought a smell of fresh greenery.

"Me, too," she said.


	2. The Enchanted April

**November 2, 2001**

On what she fondly referred to as the mainland, Juliet had always found herself drawn to examine knick-knacks and curios, seeking revelations into the personalities of their owners. Even more now, when all the houses in her island neighborhood looked the same, Juliet appreciated individual touches wherever they could be found.

Bea's living room was decorated in earth tones, with shelves full of carved animals. Juliet wondered where Bea had found them, but then it occurred to her that she may have carved them herself. She wouldn't put it past her—in a little under two months, Juliet had found that Bea was a woman of multi-layered skills.

She bent down to get a closer look at a giraffe carved out of dark wood. Her fingers reached out to trace a subtle series of lines that had appeared decorative at first glance but revealed themselves to be symbols upon closer examination. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration.

"Intriguing, isn't it?" said Ben, who had just appeared at her shoulder. He had a way of popping up when she least expected him. Then again, he would also come around when she was thinking about him. She almost believed he could be everywhere at once, and she was beginning to understand why others on the island spoke of him in almost reverential tones.

"Very," she said, straightening. "Do you know what it means?"

"I think I do," he said. "Which is not the same thing."

Juliet glanced around and saw that the others were conversing at a distance.

"I have a quick question about that project I started this afternoon," Juliet asked. "I'm in early stages, but it seems I…."

"Not here," said Ben.

Juliet regarded him questioningly.

He held up a copy of _The Enchanted April_. "It's book club," he said. "Work doesn't exist here."

She smiled. "Fair enough. So what do the symbols on this carving mean?"

"I couldn't say," he said.

"Oh," she said. "I thought you said you knew what they meant."

"I think I do," he said, "but I am not confident enough about it to hazard my guess."

"Really?" she said. "Hm."

"What?"

She shrugged. "It's just that I would have said you were confident about everything."

He gave her a nod of appreciation, eyes sparkling. "My secret is out, then. I'm only human after all."

"I'm not confident enough about that to hazard my guess," she retorted.

"Ready to start?"

They looked over and saw the rest of the group was already seated. Juliet moved apologetically to an open space on the couch next to Colleen. Ben strode to the armchair remaining as if he were every bit as much in charge here as at work.

"Isn't this a great book?" Colleen asked by way of opening the discussion.

"This is your pick, isn't it Cole?" asked the man Juliet now knew as Goodwin. "I wouldn't have pegged you for such a romantic," he teased.

"Danny's the real romantic," she said, and nearly everyone laughed. Juliet smiled a bit hesitantly. She assumed the laughter was because Colleen's husband was every bit as down-to-earth and unromantic as he appeared to be, but for all she knew the others could just as easily have been laughing in agreement. Maybe Danny Pickett really was a romantic in disguise.

Ben caught her eye and shook his head slightly. Since the first book club meeting she had attended, he seemed to have appointed himself her guide through this bewildering social realm of people who had lived in the same community for years. Her smile grew more confident.

"It's a little implausible, didn't you think?" asked Bea. "Four strangers all end up going to the same place, where miraculously all the problems of their lives begin to sort themselves out?"

"Is that so implausible?" Ben asked wryly.

"But in an unclosed environment…." Bea trailed off with a glance at Juliet.

"Just a thought," said Ben. "And wouldn't it be—enchanting, shall we say, if such a place truly existed?"

"I know I'd pay money to go there," said Juliet.

Something intangible in the essence of the room shifted, and nothing more was spoken on the implausibility of the book's premise. Juliet felt strangely as though she had just taken a pop quiz—and passed.


	3. The Bridge of San Luis Rey

**April 5, 2002**

"I like how everybody's so connected in this book," said Goodwin. "It really makes you think about people differently."

"Just think about us," said Ethan. "Who knows how many people we have in common?"

"Maybe we should make lists of everybody we know and see who ends up being our…how do you say it?" asked Colleen. "Perichole?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Juliet. "I prefer reading it silently to myself, so pronunciation isn't as big of a factor."

"She just keeps showing up," said Bea. "How can one person play that big of a role in so many lives?"

"'Some men'—or women—'are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,'" said Ben. "Then again, some have the capacity for greatness and completely miss their opportunity."

"She obviously had influence," said Juliet. "But she didn't seem to use it for any overarching purpose."

"Gaining and forfeiting lovers not being high on your list of admirable life goals?" Ben asked, and she laughed.

"She's so careless of others," said Goodwin. "Completely self-centered."

"She changes, at the end," said Bea. "After her son is gone."

"Yes," said Ben. "That would change you." Juliet shifted in her place on the couch beside him, and his eyes were on her immediately. "What?"

Juliet shook her head. "Nothing."

He raised an eyebrow, not letting it drop. "You still can't see me as a father, is that it?"

With Ben's general attitude of "book club is for talking about book club, work is for talking about work," it had been a while before Juliet learned about Alex. Even now, after having seen the two of them together on multiple occasions, eating with them in their home, hearing them talk about their shared lives—it still seemed strange to think of Ben caring for somebody in that way. Strange, but somehow encouraging.

She realized she hadn't answered his question out loud. "Not really," she said.

He smiled ruefully. "I don't think Alex can anymore, either," he said.

"She loves you," protested Colleen.

"She does," he said. "But we're entering uncharted territory now. She's pulling back. Or maybe I'm pushing her away, I don't know."

He saw Juliet's concerned frown and shook his head. "That was a little…off-topic, wasn't it? What were we saying about the Perichole?"

"She finds purpose, eventually," said Goodwin.

"But not the purpose she started out to find," said Amelia, who had joined the book club a few months ago, saying she had finally gotten enough into the rhythm of her duties on the island to find time for leisure reading. "None of them find what they think they're looking for."

"Yet they are all found," said Ben.

"Greater forces at work?" said Bea. Ben adjusted his glasses.

"The mother was the most pathetic to me," said Colleen. "She wants a relationship with her daughter so badly."

"She only thinks she does," said Juliet. "She's making her daughter up. The relationship has no sincerity to it, no depth. It isn't love. It's a form of seduction, maybe, but not love."

"That's a bit harsh," protested Colleen.

"The woman's a control freak," said Juliet.

"I think she _is_ sincere," Bea countered. "Even if she doesn't go about it in the best way, she's still trying for that relationship."

"What relationship?" Juliet scoffed. "It's all a lie."

Bea looked uncertain. Colleen was practically glaring.

"From your point of view," Goodwin put in. "As a reader. It's always less complicated from higher up, isn't it?"

"Oh, for the luxury of altitude," Ben mused. His eyes were unfocused, his expression rueful. With a twist of guilt, Juliet thought of Alex. She nudged Ben with her elbow in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. Ever so slightly, as if he didn't even notice, he leaned in sideways. For the rest of the meeting they sat just barely touching at the shoulder.

When the discussion ended, Ben got up to leave. Juliet quickly thanked Goodwin for hosting and slid out the door after Ben. She reached out her hand to his arm. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier," she told him. "I should have been more considerate about your situation with Alex."

"You don't ever need to be sorry for saying what's true," he said. "To me, of all people. But I appreciate the thought." He put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. "Walk you home?"

"It's only about five yards from here," she said.

He smiled. "Then let's take the long way."


	4. A Room with a View

**June 7, 2002**

Juliet misplaced her book and only found it after digging through three or four of the stacks of paperwork she had on hand to look over for her current project. She rushed out of her house and down the path, practically bursting through Ben's door.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, trying not to breathe heavily. "Hope you weren't waiting too long."

"No trouble to wait a few minutes," said Ben.

Although the room was crowded (interest in the book club had grown over the past few months), the place on the couch next to Ben was open. Juliet looked around and saw Adam, the newest club member, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"Oh," she said. "You can have the couch. I'm the late one."

Adam waved a hand dismissively. "I wanted to sit on the floor," he said. "I like it. Besides, I didn't want to take your spot."

She sat down, wondering just when this spot had become hers. "I don't bite," Ben whispered conspiratorially.

"Not that I've noticed so far," she whispered back in the same tone.

"Well," said Ben out loud to the whole group. "Obviously I like the book. I chose it. What did you all think?"

"I liked it, too," said Adam quickly. "A really great book."

Everyone looked at him, waiting for elaboration.

"Thoroughly engaging," Adam added, sounding pleased with himself.

"Engagingly deceptive," said one of the new women, Janine. "You think you know how things will turn out, and you're treated to the unexpected."

"It's a strange sort of romance," said Juliet. "Sort of flying in the face of logic."

"The best ones do, don't they?" said Colleen, grinning. "Look at y…." She stopped suddenly. Juliet glanced at Ben and could have sworn she saw a slight movement of his head. "...me and Danny," Colleen finished.

"I didn't say I didn't like it," said Juliet. She felt her face growing warm and didn't trust herself to continue.

"She certainly resists it long enough," said Bea. "Trying to be who everybody thinks she is."

"Who everybody _tells_ her she is," put in Goodwin. "Her whole life, everybody is telling her who she is, what she should do, what's going to make her happy."

"How she should feel," said Amelia.

"Exactly," Goodwin said.

"The predictability is comfortable," said Ethan. "Don't you think?"

"For her, or for all of us?" asked Colleen.

"True, I would say it's comfortable for everybody—but just now I meant specifically for her," Ethan clarified.

"It stops her from knowing herself," said Janine. "She's been told who she is for so long that she doesn't know what she really feels. It takes her ages to find her own voice."

"And to stand up for herself," said Bea. "Not stopping with just finding her voice, but claiming what she feels and acting on it."

"That's so hard," said Amelia.

"'It is so hard,'" quoted Ben, "'to be absolutely truthful.'"

"Right," said Amelia. "But you love her for _wanting_ to be. Or at least I did."

"So what if you see somebody trying to figure out the truth, and you already have it figured out?" said Adam. "Do you share it, or keep it to yourself?"

"In some situations, too much truth all at once can be hugely overwhelming," said Goodwin.

"Or dangerous," said Ethan.

"'What is truth?'" muttered Ben.

"George knew the truth," said Janine. "About how Lucy felt about him."

"He knew, and he forced her to face it," said Bea.

"But not to accept it," said Juliet. "He made her face it, but he let her make her own choice."

"Of whether or not to be absolutely truthful," said Amelia.

"True to herself and her feelings, yes," said Juliet.

"I like that about him," said Colleen.

"So do I," said Juliet. She was very conscious of the warmth of the other occupant of the couch, and she kept her eyes on the room in front of her.

"Do you think she could have been happy with Cecil?" asked Amelia.

"Sure," said Colleen. "All she had to do was shut her eyes, plug her ears, and ignore all the attempted entrances of reality."

Adam laughed.

"It can be done," said Ethan. "We all probably do it more often than we realize."

"Trusting your feelings isn't always such a great idea, either," said Juliet. "I followed my feelings and ended up marrying a philandering egotist."

There was a rather uncomfortable pause.

"The truth is not always safe," Ben said finally. "And it's certainly not a definitive roadmap. Only you can decide what to do with it. Nobody makes that choice for you."

Juliet felt crowded. She was acutely aware of everyone in the room, sure they were staring at her, sure they all knew what she was thinking. But if they did, nobody let on, and the discussion picked up again and continued to its completion without anyone noticing that she had stopped participating.

She helped clear things away once people started standing to go. It seemed to her that people left faster than usual. She shook her head. It was just her overactive imagination. She was acutely aware of several facts: Alex was visiting with friends, Ben was the only other person in the house, and Ben was both the last and the only person she wanted to talk to right now.

"I can take care of that," he said, and she jumped, startled again at how easily and in how many ways he threw her off guard.

"I'm done anyway," she said.

"Thank you," he said.

She stood there by the sink, staring stupidly at him and trying to think what she would say if she were able to form complete sentences.

"Ben?" she began, unnecessarily considering how bewilderingly close he was, how steady his gaze.

"Yes?"

He had just the hint of a smile on his face, unwavering and unhurrying, and she blurted out the only thing she could think of, finding for perhaps the first time in her life that the only words that worked were someone else's.

"'I want to be truthful.'"

"It's hard," he responded. "But it is just possible."

Slowly, they leaned towards each other. Juliet's heart was racing. She took a shuddering breath, closed her eyes, and….

"Oh!" gasped Colleen. Juliet jerked her head back and hit it on the corner of the refrigerator. "I'm sorry," Colleen continued. "I hope I'm not interrupting…I mean, I hope there's something to be interrupted, but I hope I'm not…."

Juliet grinned in a grimacing sort of way and moved a hand to the back of her head. Ben's fingers met hers there as he, too, assessed the damage.

"How can we help you, Cole?" he asked, and Juliet felt like a stupid schoolgirl at the pronoun.

"I…I forgot my book," Colleen said meekly. "I thought maybe I left it in here when I brought my mug in, but maybe it's…um...." She pointed beyond them to the living room. Ben nodded to her, and she hurried past.

"You okay?" he asked Juliet softly.

She pulled her fingers away and examined them. "No bleeding," she said. "Externally, anyway. Better watch my pupils for a while, though."

"I can do that." His fingers were still there, a gentle pressure over the rising place on the back of her head. "I'm good at watching things."

"I'm leaving now," Colleen called out cheerfully from the living room.

The front door opened and closed as quietly as the turning of a page.


	5. The Hound of the Baskervilles

**February 7, 2003**

"I wanted to _be_ Sherlock Holmes," Ethan revealed. "Really. I got this little deerstalker cap and matching cloak one Halloween, and I wore it all year round. I'd go up and down our block looking for clues."

"Clues to what?" Goodwin asked.

"Murders. Robberies. Lost dogs. I didn't care. I'd take clues to anything."

"You're serious?" said Amelia.

"Why would I say something that makes me look so ridiculous if I weren't serious?" Ethan laughed.

"Did you ever find anything?" Adam asked.

"Oh, I found all kinds of things," he said. "There were clues all over the place. It's amazing how many conspiracies you can find with the right touch of paranoia."

"I love Sherlock Holmes," said Janine. "But don't you think he'd be insufferable in person? He knows _everything_."

"You'd sure never get to win an argument," Bea agreed.

"Plus he has the emotional sensitivity of a doorstop," put in Colleen.

"He's sensitive enough," Juliet protested mildly. "It's just not right there on the surface. Watson knows he cares about people."

"Watson's always a bit surprised by it, wouldn't you say?" asked Ben.

"I wouldn't say surprised," said Juliet. "Just…reminded."

"It would be easy to forget somebody like Holmes is human at all," said Goodwin.

"I think he's intriguing partly _because_ he's so brusque and generally unapproachable," Bea volunteered.

Colleen nodded. "And because he's so great at what he does."

"That's the part I always liked," said Ethan. "I didn't care that he wasn't a warm and cuddly person. I still don't care. I like that he's so…."

"Omniscient?" offered Juliet.

"Capable, I guess," said Ethan. "He knows his business, and he does it well. Capable people are always attractive in some way, wouldn't you agree, Julie?"

Juliet grinned. "I suppose I can think of a few ways in which that might be true." Ben smiled and took her hand.

"I hope you're not calling me inhuman, too, Ethan," Ben said. His tone was casual, but Juliet noticed a few of the longtime residents of the island exchange glances.

"Goodwin said that, I didn't."

"Hey!" Goodwin protested. "Don't go putting words in my mouth."

"Just look at it as something to watch out for," Juliet teased Ben.

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "That's why I have you, Jules," he murmured.

"No pressure, right?" she muttered back.

"I always read Sherlock Holmes stories and think I should be able to solve the case, but I never can," said Bea.

"And then when you get to the end, it seems so obvious," said Amelia.

"I see that as a metaphor," Adam piped up, "for how much we miss in day-to-day life that is really right in front of our noses." He looked over at Ben.

Juliet suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, maintaining a polite listening expression. In her opinion, Adam was a bit of a toady.

"So true," Ben said, absolutely straight-faced. "How much truth is staring us right in the face, and we miss it. Sad."

Juliet felt a slight pressure on her hand. She squeezed back, not daring to risk making eye contact with Ben and struggling even harder not to burst out laughing. Adam was practically puffing with self-importance.

"'The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes,'" quoted Ben. "Hm," he added contemplatively, and she was forced to fake a cough.

"Did you trust any of the characters?" asked Janine.

As all eyes turned away from them, Juliet took the opportunity to turn swiftly to Ben and whisper, "Stop it."

"Stop what?" he whispered back innocently, but there was mischief glinting in his eyes.

She quirked an eyebrow warningly and turned back to the others.

"…and Watson, obviously," said Ethan. "But not anybody else."

"You really can't know who to trust until the end," said Bea.

Juliet's face twisted in distaste. "What a horrible way to live."

"But kind of hard to avoid when everybody's hiding something," argued Colleen. "Like in this book."

"I can't imagine living with that kind of tension," said Adam, and suddenly Juliet remembered the conversation she had with Ben on the walk to Ethan's house.

"How are things with Alex today?" she had asked him. "Last night at dinner I could have cut the tension with a knife."

"Let's not talk about this now," he had said. "It's book club." 

"First of all," she countered, "we're not quite there yet. Secondly, it's your _life_." She stopped walking then. "And I thought you wanted me in it."

He took her hand. "Of course I do," he said. He stared unseeingly at a point beyond her. "Some things," he continued slowly, "are difficult to talk about."

"Try." She placed her free hand on his face gently. "Please try. For me."

"I will," he said. "I promise. But I've never done this before. Been this close to someone." He looked her straight in the eye and she was taken aback by the pleading in his gaze. "I need your help, Juliet."

"Hey." She leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "Always."

"We'd better get moving, or we're going to be late," he had said. "Can we talk about this later?"

"Sure," she had said.

"Juliet?" Goodwin asked, and her thoughts came back to the present. "Are you still with us?"

"I think," she said slowly, "that a lot of tension could be alleviated with simple honesty."

"And if you have something to protect?" asked Bea.

"I don't know," she said. "But it seems like we make our own problems by not being straight with each other. And what's the good of protecting something if you wind up doing it alone?"

"I think we're a little off-topic," Ethan said.

Juliet dropped it and let the meeting move on, but even while she was joining in the conversation about phosphorescent dogs and treacherous marshlands, she was thinking about what Ben had said to her earlier, trying hard to remember if he had ever really opened up to her about Alex, or about work, or about anything truly important in his life.

Trying hard to believe that this time he would.


	6. Wuthering Heights

**March 5, 2004**

"I came by to walk you here," he said, "but you were already gone."

"I came early to help Cole with the tea," she said, setting down the mugs she had nearly dropped at his entrance.

"The tea?" he asked, sounding confused.

She added another pair of mugs to the tray on the counter.

"You were gone when I came by last night, too," he said. "And you've barely spoken to me the past few days. Is there something wrong?"

"I've been here two and a half years, Ben," she said. "Two and a half years today."

"That's right." He sounded surprised. "I guess I forgot the exact date. It seems like you've been here forever."

She grasped the counter hard with both hands. "Yeah."

"That's not it, is it?" he queried. "You're not upset that I missed an anniversary."

She shook her head. "I'm fine, Ben," she said. "Really."

"Please don't lie to me, Juliet." He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. His voice was low and sad. "Please, let me in. Tell me what's wrong." He ran his hands down her arms, and she grabbed at them.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't know…so many things. The past two and a half years…they're gone. They went by so fast. And sometimes I dream about my sister, and Miami, and I just…I wake up at night and nothing seems _real_ here."

He pulled her close. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. I forget that you—that none of you know this place like I do."

"I know it's your life," she sighed. "But it's just where I live, Ben."

He stiffened slightly. She buried her head in his shoulder, and her next words were muffled. "Why can't we go to the mainland? Together, I mean? Just get up and go, you and me, go to Miami. See my sister. Let me show you where _I _grew up."

He pushed her away, and she looked up to see Colleen. "I heard the teakettle," she said, eying Juliet suspiciously. "Don't let me interrupt."

"We'll talk about this later," he told Juliet. "And, Jules? We _will _come to a mutually beneficial solution."

"'A mutually beneficial…'" she began, but he was already in the living room, taking his usual place. She followed slowly.

"_Wuthering Heights_: Man against his circumstances, or man against himself? Discuss."

"No fair!" Colleen laughed to Goodwin. "This is my pick."

"Let me guess," Amelia said in a gently teasing tone. "You want to talk about the romantic tragedy of Heathcliff and Catherine—two people who claim to love each other but yet can't seem to refrain from lashing out at each other like wild beasts."

"They do love each other," Colleen objected.

"Sure they do," said Goodwin. "There's no way two people could make each other so completely miserable otherwise."

Colleen rolled her eyes.

"Catherine says she _is_ Heathcliff," Ethan mused, "and yet that Heathcliff is beneath her."

"She is certainly not displaying a healthy self-image," said Adam.

"I don't think you understand the importance of class distinctions in this era," Bea said. "It's not like now, when you can associate with anybody you want. Heathcliff and Catherine are worlds apart socially."

"But not in their hearts," Colleen argued. "They _are_ the same. She just doesn't want to admit it. Everything would have been better if Catherine could have just gotten over herself."

"And Heathcliff is such a perfect example of manhood," Amelia commented drily.

"He knows he doesn't deserve her," said Ben mildly. "He's not about to let her go, of course, which possibly makes things worse for them in the long run. But she's not the only one aware of the class distinction."

"What did you think about that man she ends up marrying?" asked Ethan. "Edgar?"

"Ugh," Adam grunted. "Spineless and useless, and the son turns out the same way."

Colleen's lip curled up in disgust. "How could anybody choose him over Heathcliff?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Juliet. "Maybe because Heathcliff was turning out to be a dangerous sociopath? It certainly would be calmer living with Edgar."

"More boring, you mean," came Colleen's rejoinder.

"No, she's right," Ethan said. "It would be calmer, certainly. The question is whether it would be fulfilling. Is it worth giving up passion, no matter how volatile, for a little peace and quiet?"

"I don't know if that's relevant," said Janine. "All evidence from the book suggests that it didn't matter whether or not she married him, anyway—they're still two parts of the same person."

"They belong on the island," Colleen blurted out. "They shouldn't leave it. All their problems come when Catherine tries to leave it."

"You mean the moor," Juliet corrected her.

"I said the moor."

"No, you said…." Juliet trailed to a stop at the hurt and betrayal in Colleen's eyes. She looked around and met a number of curious gazes directed at her. She shook her head. "Never mind."

"It's not the moor she leaves, anyway, it's just the Heights," Adam corrected.

"Have any of you ever been to the moors?" asked Janine. She received a variety of responses in the negative. "I have," she said. "My husband and I honeymooned in England. There's a place on the moors outside of Haworth—Haworth is where the Brontës lived—called Top Withins. People think it may have been the inspiration for Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights the house, I mean, not the book itself. So Kevin and I decided we were going to go see it. We had our maps, and our compasses, and warm coats—it was January—and we set off across the moors."

Janine shook her head. Her expression was becoming more and more distant, as if her memories were pulling her into the past with them. "You step onto the moors and it's as if civilization ceases to exist. They're wild, and fierce, and none of the tools we brought with us seemed to be reliable. We went in over our ankles in mud puddles. We walked into a stinging ice storm for an hour—our faces were bright red with the marks. Then we reached the house, or what's left of it, and it was old and alone and abandoned, and even when we stood in the shelter of the walls it wasn't much shelter. On the way back we got lost and wandered around for two hours before we found a farmhouse. They gave us directions back to the road."

She smiled, but there was something in her smile that sent a shiver down Juliet's spine. Ben put his arm around her.

"The moor has a great deal of personality," Janine said. "Heathcliff, Catherine, the moor itself—they're the same. The story couldn't take place anywhere except on the moor. The characters wouldn't exist anywhere else."

Juliet leaned hard against Ben, a wave of conflicting emotions washing over her. Ben would never leave this island, any more than she could ever leave Ben. They would always be part of each other, always linked—no matter what happened, or how much distance was between them.

He turned towards her, eyebrows drawn together in a concerned expression. "You okay?" he mouthed.

She grimaced and replied under her breath, "I think my imagination is running away with me."

He tightened his arm around her.

"I hope so, anyway," she whispered.


	7. Animal Farm

**August 6, 2004**

"You're not the only one around here with ideas on how things should be run," she said.

"He talks to me."

"So get me an invitation."

"It doesn't work that way."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were scared."

"Fortunately, you do know better."

She studied him intently. "What are you afraid of, Ben?"

He turned away from her.

"Because you are," she challenged. "You are afraid. You're afraid that if you once stop holding on so tightly, everything will get away from you. Have you ever thought that if you'd just stop trying so hard, maybe we wouldn't want to get away in the first place?"

"You think this is about me?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

"You're still very new here," he said.

"Three years is not…."

"And very naïve."

"You stubborn, arrogant…." She bit back the words. "You once asked me to help you, remember?"

"Don't try to make this about us, either," he countered. "Me and you. Me and Alex. Me arrayed against all the others."

"All right, Ben, tell me," she said bitterly. "Go ahead and tell me what I should think about all this."

"Three years," he said. "You've been here coming on three years and you think you know everything that's going on."

"I've been here long enough."

His swift exhalation of breath sounded dismissive, almost mocking. "I find it interesting that you cast me as the villain of the piece."

"I'm not…."

"Would it be so hard to choose to trust me?"

"You say you're doing all this for our best interests, Ben, but…."

"How are you so sure that I'm not?"

"I want to believe that."

"So believe it," he said. "What's stopping you?"

"I…."

"When I tell you I love you," he said, "do you think that's a lie, too?"

She pressed a knuckle to her eye, blinking back tears.

"It isn't," he said quietly. "But I can't believe it for you. I can't make your choices for you, Jules. I've always said that."

"That's exactly what you…."

"I can order the environment," he interrupted. "Not your response to it."

"That's the part I'm not so sure of."

"Who do you think I am?" he asked. "God?" His mouth twisted into a joyless grin. "The devil?"

A beeping sound broke the increasingly unquiet silence. Ben and Juliet both reached for their walkie-talkies at the same time.

It was Juliet's. "Yes," she snapped.

The walkie crackled into life. "Julie, it's Amelia."

Juliet threw a glance at the clock. "Oh. Book club. I'm sorry—time got away from me. I'll be right there."

"Are you and Ben together?"

Juliet hesitated.

"Can you let him know?"

"Yes," said Juliet quickly. "We'll be there soon."

Amelia clicked off.

"We'll continue this later," Juliet threw over her shoulder as she opened her door and headed onto the path to Bea's house.

"Certainly. I have unanswered questions, too, you know."

They walked to Bea's house in silence. Juliet wondered how many times they had had variations of this particular argument in the time since she came to the island. Not often back in the heady rush of their beginnings, of course—back before she realized what he was capable of, and in realizing that, knew that of which she herself was capable. Out of the corner of her eye, Ben seemed to be as perfectly at ease as he always was. People nodded at them as they passed. She felt absurdly like a queen taking a stroll with the royal consort. Or maybe Brutus walking with Caesar.

The only place left to sit in Bea's living room was the couch. Juliet briefly weighed the discomfort of sitting by Ben just now with the projected consequences of choosing a space on the floor at the other side of the room. Briefly. They sat beside each other, as usual. He slung his arm around her shoulders, as usual. She had felt a clandestine undercurrent between them for years now. Whenever they were around others, she had felt there were secrets they two held fast against the eyes of the world.

Usually, those secrets had been a source of satisfaction, of pride. Even watching other people guess at them had brought her pleasure. Now….

"What happened to you two?" Adam asked, and her head swung around sharply.

Ben's arm tensed, and she took it as a warning. "Nothing. Just lost track of time."

Adam grinned. Practically winked. Juliet was strongly tempted to throw something at him.

"I'm glad you called, Amelia," she lied.

"Well, we couldn't do this without you, Juliet," Amelia smiled.

Was it paranoia, or was that a declaration of allegiance? Juliet nodded to everyone in the room and suddenly saw them in terms of alliances. Ethan, Goodwin, even Colleen—they were all with Ben; she'd noticed them begin to treat her differently as things between the two of them had begun to deteriorate. Adam would be with Ben if it weren't for the fact that he was too stupid to notice any sort of rivalry emerging. Amelia and Janine were with her. Bea prided herself in treating everyone equally and staying as far out of the politics of the island as possible, but if pushed, she'd probably decide it was safer to….

"It was so sad!" exclaimed Colleen, bringing Juliet's thoughts back to the meeting at hand. "Poor Boxer!"

"Poor all of them," said Amelia. "Here they are, thinking they're forging a brand new world, and all this time they're being lied to."

"Do you think the pigs started out with a grand master plan?" Goodwin asks. "It seems to me like they're making it all up as they go."

Janine considered this. "So maybe there was a point at which the vision wasn't a lie?"

"Depends on the vision, doesn't it?" Ethan pointed out. "I mean, the pigs seem to end up having their vision fulfilled in the end."

"The vision is Communism," Adam pontificated. "You can see pretty obvious parallels. A group unites for a common purpose, overthrows cruelly oppressive and ultimately inefficient leaders. Then the group becomes what it started out fighting against."

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," said Bea.

"It's never enough," Janine said. "They get more and more, and they're never satisfied."

Colleen looked thoughtful. "Makes you wonder if the rebellion was a good idea in the first place."

"Their other choice is slavery with no end in sight," Juliet responded. "I think rebellion was their best shot."

"Still," Colleen argued, "it's a revolution based on some crazy old pig's dreams. How reality-based is that?"

"We're reading a book with talking animals," Goodwin reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Old Major's successors cause the real problems," said Ethan. "Snowball and Napoleon."

"The first time I ever read this book," confessed Bea, "I had nightmares about Napoleon for weeks. Deceitful, back-stabbing, Machiavellian…." She laughed, a bit embarrassed. "Well, let's just say thoroughly unpleasant."

"Squealer is the worst," said Juliet. "He's worse than Napoleon. Napoleon may be the one who issues the orders, but Squealer's the one who dresses them up for the public. He can get anybody to do anything. All he has to do is find what they're emotionally invested in"—she turned an unblinking gaze on Ben—"and then exploit it."

"I don't think that's really…" Colleen objected, but Ben was talking over her as if she weren't saying anything at all.

"So your argument is that the other animals are all too stupid to realize when they're being exploited?"

"He's really good at it."

"Oh, beyond a doubt," he agreed. "But then, people—and animals—believe what they choose to believe, isn't that right? The dictators in this book essentially come to power by consent of the governed, don't they?"

"Consent or not, they're still serving pigs."

"Or men," he mused. "Which turns out to be the same, in the end."

"I found that interesting," Amelia broke in. "I know we touched on this earlier, but do you think that was the goal of the pigs all along, or that it happened naturally, unavoidably?"

Bea made a thoughtful noise. "Becoming what they hated, you mean?"

"We have met the enemy, and they are us," said Adam.

"He."

Adam looked at Ben curiously.

"'_He_ is us,'" Ben clarified.

"So you can complain about the pigs all you want," Adam began cautiously, watching Ben as though searching for approval. "But if you did nothing to stop them, you have only yourself to blame."

Ben shrugged noncommittally.

"I've heard if you put a frog in a pot of water and turn the heat up gradually enough, it won't realize how hot it's getting until it's too late. So when it boils alive…." Juliet paused. She met everyone's eyes evenly, finally resting on Ben's. "Is it the frog's fault?"

A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "Or Snowball's?"

Several of the others laughed.

"Yeah, that Snowball sure was a shifty character," agreed Colleen.

"_Everything_ was his fault," added Ethan. "He must have been superhuman."

"'Superpig,'" joked Goodwin.

Despite herself, Juliet joined the laughter. For a moment, she let herself forget her quarrels with Ben and her concerns over who was on her side. In this moment, she was just one of them, one of these people with whom she'd become so familiar since she first came here.

How disturbingly comfortable it all was.


	8. Anna Karenina

**September 3, 2004**

Juliet had surprised everyone when she volunteered a book selection for the September meeting. _Anna Karenina_, no less, and many of the other members voiced their opinion that it was an ambitious first choice. If any remembered that it really hadn't been her first choice, nobody said anything about it.

Ethan hefted his book with both hands. "This was some pick, Julie. I barely got through it in time."

"Why did it take you so long to choose a book for us?" Amelia asked.

Juliet answered with a demure smile and nothing more.

"Certainly moves faster than Dostoevsky, though," Ethan continued, regarding the thick book. "Wouldn't you say, Ben?"

"I wouldn't know," came the reply. "I've managed to go my whole life without reading any Dostoevsky, and I don't plan to start anytime soon."

"Same sort of thing," said Goodwin. "Russian lit is all so depressing."

"You thought this was depressing?" Colleen asked.

"Uh, she throws herself under a train, Cole," Ethan reminded her. "If that fits your idea of uplifting, I'd hate to read anything you consider truly depressing."

"Well, sure, if you focus on the negative," Colleen bridled. "If you read right past Levin and Kitty."

"The name of the book…."

Bea cut Ethan off. "Well, clearly she's the central figure, but Cole's right. There are others in this story besides just Anna."

"I think the book ends the way it does precisely because she forgets that fact," said Janine.

"Her story ends that way," Ben amended. "The book ends with hope."

"It was nice to have hope," said Colleen. "I hated reading about all those other relationships falling apart. People who must have loved each other once, and then someone gets paranoid and runs off. It's just…wrong." She brushed away a tear and stared down at the book in her hands.

Amelia tilted her head to one side contemplatively. "It isn't some_one_. There's never just _one_ person to blame. I saw Anna's husband as a bit pompous, and a bit prone to take her for granted. Then her lover dislikes being tied down. And she herself can't figure out just exactly what or who she wants out of life."

"So she destroys herself," said Ethan.

"Suicide being the least deadly of her destructions."

"This book," Adam chimed in, "can be seen as a treatise on the relationship between love and honesty. Anna is never fully honest with anyone, and so she fosters distrust wherever she goes. On the other hand we have Levin, who is so honest that he has his fiancée read his journals."

"As if his love would be a lie if she didn't know the truth about his life," said Bea.

"Would you want to read Danny's journals?" Goodwin asked Colleen.

"I don't need to," she said, glancing over at Juliet. "Danny and I trust each other."

Janine grinned. "Which would make them much less stressful reading, wouldn't it?"

"Juliet," Amelia asked, "what was it you liked about this book?"

"'Happy families are all alike,'" quoted Juliet. "'Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'"

She felt everyone turn to her, but she kept her eyes on the cover of the book on her lap and said nothing more. A secretive smile played on her lips.

"Do you think that's true?" Ethan asked. "Can't people be happy in their own ways?"

"Maybe, maybe not," said Goodwin. "But it makes a heck of an opening line."

"I think it has some truth to it. Unhappy people are lots more interesting to read about," Janine admitted.

"I'd rather give up the great art and have everybody be happy," said Colleen.

Ben shook his head. "I wouldn't."

"Me, neither," agreed Adam. "Besides, how would you measure the heights Levin and Kitty reach if it weren't for the depths to which Anna and Vronsky descend?"

"I just think there's enough distrust and suspicion in real life," Colleen persisted. "I don't want to read about it, too."

"This from the woman who picked _Wuthering Heights_," Ethan pointed out.

"I'm tired of it," she said. "Let's read something happy next time."

"Do you have anything in mind?" Bea asked.

"Doesn't matter," Goodwin said dismissively. "Happy books are all the same, anyway."

The discussion stumbled along, but without even the hostess to spur it on, enthusiasm waned rapidly. Colleen grew increasingly somber and eventually left early, claiming she had a headache. Bea remembered she had to write up paperwork for a project. Amelia suddenly noticed the time, which reminded Janine how late it was getting. Steadily, Juliet's house emptied.

She turned from seeing Adam out just in time to observe Ben getting up from the couch. The hand he put to his back as he stood was quickly removed when he saw her watching him.

"How long has your back been hurting?" she asked. "I've seen you do that more than once recently."

"It's nothing."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Why don't you have Ethan take some x-rays?"

"I don't need…."

"It's not any trouble, said Ethan.

"Don't tell us you're scared of x-rays," she prodded. "Trust me…one set of x-rays won't hurt you. You can take that as my professional opinion."

Ben looked as though he were about to protest, but then he saw the concerned expressions Ethan and Goodwin wore. "I'll think about it."

"Don't wait too long," Ethan warned him.

"Stop being such a pessimist," Ben scolded in return.

Ethan and Goodwin seemed reluctant to leave, and they looked differently at Ben as they left than they had when they arrived. Juliet smiled and waved as they stepped off the porch.

"Well played," Ben conceded after the door had closed behind them and he and Juliet were alone. "It would appear my king is in check."

"I'm not playing anymore, Ben."

He nodded. "Tell me—why did we read this book?"

"I didn't read it."

"Before this time?"

"At all." Ben looked confused, and Juliet smiled bitterly. "I just liked the cover."

"And the opening line, apparently."

"Which"—Juliet extended her book to Ben, who took it—"was on the cover."

He turned the book over. "So it is." Something between comprehension and sadness entered his eyes. "You know, I hate Russian literature."

"I know."

He met her eyes and held them calmly, challenging her to make the next move.

She squared her shoulders, emphasizing every last bit of her height advantage. "I want to go home."

He recoiled as though she had slapped him. "I thought this…."

"So did I," she said. "But that was a lot of chapters ago."

His face set. "I think you know my answer."

"You can't do that."

"You should know by now there are very few things I can't do."

"You can't just…."

"_You_ can't just leave m…"—he stopped and took a steady breath—"…us."

"We're both aware I haven't really been here for a long time."

They stared at each other with an intensity that bordered on cruelty.

"You can throw yourself under a train, if you like," Ben said finally, his eyes glazing over with a bizarre sort of professionalism. "Just don't kid yourself that it wasn't your own decision."

Juliet crossed to the door and held it open. "Get out."

"Goodnight, Juliet," he said casually, walking by her just a few inches closer than necessary. "Thanks for hosting. See you at work."

She slammed the door shut behind him and rested her forehead against the wood. His cologne in her nostrils was suffocating, and she was almost choking on the scream rising in her throat.

Abruptly, she slammed her palm against the wall, whirled to her desk, and picked up the walkie-talkie that was lying there.

"Amelia, it's Juliet," she began. "Nothing earth-shaking. I just wanted to let you know what we're reading next time…."


	9. Carrie

**September 22, 2004**

Wednesday morning dawned clear and sunny. Juliet knew this because she was awake to see the sunrise, as she had been awake for yesterday's, as she had been awake for most of the past two nights. She lay in bed for a while, slipping into brief and soon disturbed sleep and waking again with that cold queasy feeling she had been trying to shake. She didn't have any projects today, so she decided to stay home and try to get some rest. Rolling over to one side, she caught sight of a book on her nightstand.

Right.

A niggling sense of anger accompanied her into the kitchen, where she set about making muffins. Today was supposed to have been something entirely different, the start of something new and exciting, a bit rebellious and maybe even a bit dangerous. Today was going to be the day she stepped out from his shadow and back into the sunshine she remembered feeling so long ago.

His shadow, as it turned out, was exceedingly long. She felt it as a personal affront that his big news had come two days ago. Two days from now, now that would have been better timing. Trust him to upstage her, to take all the triumph out of a moment she had been waiting for ever since the last book club meeting. Ever since she had made a few calls and dropped a few subtle hints and assembled the makings of a new group.

They were going to read _Carrie_, of all books. Her very favorite. The book she had come to see as the antithesis to all his stuffy, metaphor-filled intellectual classics. _Carrie_, a book about a girl who was pushed too far, snapped, and started to destroy everyone in her path. She cursed him in her mind for opening her up to the metaphor implicit in that particular mental summary.

Or maybe not so implicit. After all, the last man who had been important in her life got hit by a bus.

She'd only had time to think about that afterwards. About how she had watched him die. About how she used to dream of the time when he would be out of her life forever. Yet also about how in the split second before the bus hit, the split second she knew it would be a miracle if he survived, she still didn't know how she wanted it all to turn out.

Now she was watching another man die. Faced with a matter of weeks this time, a few months, maybe. In the amount of time left, how many new lives could she imagine for herself without him?

She put the muffins in the oven and went back to bed, lying there with her eyes closed and trying so hard not to think that her heart hammered wildly and her tears flowed all too freely. It was too quiet, she decided. When it was too quiet, there was nothing to do except think. Especially if that was what you were most avoiding.

She got up and put in a CD, quickly bypassing the classic composers—why hadn't she given those back yet? she had never liked classical music—and stopping at an artist he hated. Petula Clark. Too much popular appeal, not enough complexity. Same problem he had with Stephen King, she assumed.

She rubbed her hands across her face and willed herself to stop connecting everything with him. Today was the day she was stepping out on her own, without an escort. She knew this place, and these people, and she didn't need a guide. Or a conscience. Or any of the other things he had tried to be. Pretended to be.

At about the same time, she realized two things. First, she wasn't doing a good job of not thinking about him. Second, that smell coming from the kitchen meant burnt muffins.

Amelia came early, in time to help her clear away the muffins, air out the kitchen, and open a package of chocolate chip cookies that had come in the latest Dharma Initiative drop. She asked Juliet how she was feeling, saying she looked tired. Juliet provided a lie for an answer with an ease that no longer surprised her.

Janine and the others trickled in slowly. Adam, typically, didn't bother asking any questions. Where were the other regulars? Why were so many new people there? Why were they meeting on a Wednesday morning instead of a Friday evening? Where, out of mere curiosity, was _he_?

Juliet took up twice as much space as usual on her couch, fighting his absence with her presence. Is this what she would be doing for the rest of her life, in all of her spaces? She looked down at the book in her hand. It wasn't a cheerful piece of fiction, by any stretch. There was a lot of heartache and a lot—a lot—of blood. But in the end was understanding and forgiveness. In the end, Carrie found redemption. Just before she destroyed herself.

Not a cheerful piece of fiction.

"Now I know why Ben isn't here," complained Adam.

And Juliet snapped.


	10. Epilogue

**December 3, 2004**

"Do you believe that everything rights itself in the end?"

His voice sounded strangely normal, as if he weren't lying helplessly on an operating table, bleeding to death internally. Somehow, the normalcy of his tone added to the vulnerability of his situation.

"You have twenty-six minutes to live," she said. "Are you sure this is how you want to use them?"

"I'm not afraid," he replied. "I'm not going to die."

"You're not." Her tone was flatly incredulous.

"I have too many things to straighten out," he said, and chuckled softly. "Like them, I suppose."

"This isn't a book, Ben," she said. "In real life you don't always get to make things right."

"I was thinking," he said. "Maybe for the next book club meeting we could read _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_. After you get back from your trip to the mainland."

"Don't play games with me," she entreated him. "Not now. Not still."

"I'm dying," he said. "Not abstractly, not in the future, I am dying as we speak. What reason would I have to lie to you?"

As the first tear ran down her cheek, she was acutely aware of Jack staring down at them. She turned away from the window to compose herself.

"What do you want, Ben?"

"'Books ain't no good,'" he began.

"Ben."

"Lots of things."

In the brief pause that ensued, she thought about how many times in the past few months she had fantasized about this moment—the moment when this man was dying. She remembered Edmund. The same mistake….

"I need your help, Juliet."

She stiffened, holding herself together, not breaking down. Not in front of him, not ever again.

"You know they need to live. I need…I want…to live."

"Okay." She brushed her hand across her eyes quickly and stood up.

"Jules?"

She stopped, her breath snagging in her throat at his use of the familiar nickname. She hadn't heard it in months. " Don't," she warned.

"Will you…."

She looked down at him, this man who had complicated her life beyond anything she could have ever imagined, this man whose life she now held in her hands, and she made a choice.

"There's always hope." Her voice was cool, clinical. "Even in Stephen King."


End file.
